Inheriting the Faith
by Izzu
Summary: Based on episode 26. Being a Red had its own pressures.


My attempt of making a Marv contemplation fic. XD. Was doing this in between my main NaNo. Was tossing random thoughts in this.

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><p><span>Inheriting the Faith<span>

Written by Izzu

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Being a Red leader of a sentai team had, in one sense a certain kind of pressure. He never really felt it bearing down on him much before, perhaps because he never really spent any time getting to know any of his fellow senior Red sentai leaders before him. Save AkaRed.

He never thought it was necessary anyway, since his main concern was to acquire the grand powers of the past sentai teams in order to find the greatest treasure of the universe. So, that part about getting to know his seniors? Was there any point to do that?

AkaRed was different. Then again, with him being part of the Red Pirates under AkaRed's lead... one could not avoid to be familiar with each other. Considering all those times he and AkaRed had gone out together to recover the many ranger keys. That aside, AkaRed was special. Aside from AkaRed, he never really considered getting to know any of his seniors. Especially the Reds.

It has been a while... but now that he thought about it, yes, to him AkaRed held a certain level of respect from him. It was hard for him to explain... but to him, AkaRed was like a great idolized role model figure to him. Thus, when AkaRed had entrusted the Ranger keys to him as well as the mission to recover all of the other Ranger keys and obtaining the greatest treasure of the universe—he had not hesitated on it and continued on with it. Since that was his dream as well, obtaining the greatest treasure of the universe.

Even if he had no idea what that 'greatest treasure' really was.

He had always reasoned to himself that he was doing it for himself. To find the greatest treasure he could find—which coincide with AkaRed's true mission of wanting to recover the powers of the past sentai teams that have been lost since the great war. To find the reason for his existence, that by looking for that greatest treasure... he would eventually know the purpose of his life.

By that same reasoning... he had looked for the best suitable member for his team. That would be deemed suitable in AkaRed's eyes, and the ones... who would be better than Basco. A team where he could trust his life with and not worry that he would be betrayed later. Despite such things should be expected in a pirate's life.

Even then, being a team of pirates—that rung better than a team of fugitives anyway—it never crossed his mind to actually have any thought about their predecessors. Much less getting their approval aside for the purpose of acquiring the greater power of the past sentai teams.

To acquire the greater powers of the past sentai teams, there was no other ways aside from finding those same people who used to be part of those teams. So, once they manage to get it... then, they get to move on to another. There was no need for him or any of his team members, to get too friendly with their seniors. They were pirates after all. Pirates did not usually go around socializing with people for no reason.

Or so he thought.

Even though they called themselves pirates, they did not behave like normal pirates do. Looking back, if there was a time they even went plundering for valuables... their targets were mostly related to anyone or anything that had anything to do with Zangyacks. They had never attacked or robbed any civilians or anyone who had no alliances with the Zangyacks. Their only purpose was to find the greatest treasure, as well as opposing Zangyack.

Come to think, should they have tried learning more about their seniors? He did not know about the others—and let us ignore Gai—but the only one senior that he knew well had been AkaRed. And even though AkaRed was not part of any sentai teams, he was the embodiment of every single Red sentai member that ever existed.

AkaRed was a great person to him. The things he had learned, seen... while being part of the Red Pirates, had been his precious memories. If there was any Red sentai member that he would like to impress... that would be AkaRed. If he had grown better as GokaiRed ever since arriving on Earth, the only one he would have liked to be given approval of... that would also be AkaRed.

Wonder if he should have tried learning more about Ozu Kai, otherwise known as MagiRed. The only impression he had of Kai had been as that mysterious person who led Doc and him run around on a wild goose chase, only to have Don be put in mock courage test. Then again, not that he had a chance to. Kai left immediately as soon as he told Doc on what was the clue to finding the greatest treasure, as well as the secret to Magiranger's grand power.

It was the same with Banban Akaza, the leader of Dekaranger... DekaRed. Yes, they did exchange words that time after they defeated Buramudo... but that was still not enough to say if he had any impression on Ban. On what kind of person he was... or his abilities as the original DekaRed. Should he even care what Akaza think of him?

As to Kandou Jan and Shishi Kakeru, well... if there was anyone that had any opportunity to get to know them, that was not him. That was all Ahim and Doc.

Even though there was a moment when he was feeling exasperated that he did not ended up giving a good impression to those guys—had he known that the veterinarian was GaoRed, he would have at least be less rude—it never was on his mind to actually try to impress those people. It was not something he felt was important after all.

Even when they met Shiba Kaoru, he did not feel inclined to actually try to show her that he was as good as any Red sentai leaders could have been. Even after he found out from Gai that there was another ShinkenRed aside from her.

It was the same with the other Red leaders he have met after that. Or maybe not... with exception of GoseiRed. Even then, he did not feel like he should impress Alata about his own ability. Probably because Alata appeared to be younger than himself, he did not see him or the other Goseigers as his seniors.

Still, there was never any inclination he felt about wanting to try show their seniors that they—he—made good sentai team. As good as any of the past teams have been in the past.

That was... until they met the Hurricanegers. Or specifically, Shiina Yousuke. Otherwise known as HurricaneRed.

In the past, he always thought that his own team was already as good as any members of the past teams. But then there was Satarakura Jr., trapping Joe, Luka and himself inside that weird dimension space. Back then he had no idea of how he could have turned the situation around to their advantage.

Yet, when the Hurricanegers arrived... even with them being caught later; they have managed to turn the tables on Satarakura Jr. as well as recovering the people that have been turned into bikkuri. All that just by using their wit against their enemy while not making them aware of it. That was something impressive. Until that point, he never really thought that he had anything else he could have learned from his predecessors aside from learning the key to unleashing their grand powers. But Shiina Yousuke changed that.

After they returned from that weird space; when Yousuke told Ahim that he disliked many of their traits yet finding them not to be so bad—a part of him felt annoyed. It was not as much as he was feeling any bit insulted over that statement. It was more like, a part of him was annoyed with himself to have showed a bad side of himself to Shiina Yousuke.

He could bet that it was the same with Joe and Luka.

Somehow, for the first time... he felt that he needed to show his predecessors that he could be as good as them while leading his team to fight against Zangyack. He could not let Yousuke and his two partners to only have the bad impression of themselves to remember with. Certainly not that pitiful situation they had led themselves into.

He needed to show that he also... was qualified to be a Red sentai team leader. As good as Shiina Yousuke. As good as any other of the Red leaders. As good as AkaRed.

Even if he was still... just a pirate.

Somehow, he wondered if he could meet them again another time. To get to know them better, to understand better on how much they love this earth... to the point of risking their own lives to protect it. To know how he—and his team—could become as strong as them in facing many adversaries. So that they too, could become as legendary as they have been.

He also needed to fix that part about him not being able to introduce himself properly to them after all. It should be proper.

Marvelous snorted to himself. Hah, proper? What inappropriate word for a pirate to ever use...

xxx

"Marvelous-san... what were you thinking about?"

Captain Marvelous looked up to see Gai staring back at him. He shrugged.

"Nothing. I was just daydreaming," he answered without thinking as that seemed to satisfy Gai's curiosity.

"But I was glad! It's lucky that Yousuke-san and the others did not keep in their hearts about the things I've said to them earlier. I'm so relieved... I won't forgive myself if I ended up making the Yousuke-san hate me!"

Marvelous stared at Gai curiously as this seemed to be intriguing him. What did Gai do before this that could have incurred the Hurricanegers disapproval?

Doc suddenly patted Gai's shoulders in a comforting gesture. "Don't worry about that, Gai. Though, I had to agree that you could have been less passionate about your thoughts. We've already expected many of the past sentai members not thinking kindly of us at first meeting. After all, we've been able to use the powers of the past teams using their ranger keys for quite some time. Certainly they would be wary of us because of that. So we could handle the situation fine without you having to defend us strongly. We don't really mind it if they think badly of us. We could always turn that around."

Ahim walked towards him before nodding. "What Doc said was right. It would have been very rude to try to force any of the past sentai members to think better about us Gokaigers. It would not have been right either. And it did turned out that letting them have their ranger keys back was the right decision. I can't imagine what we could have done had things happened differently. All of us might not be able to escape!"

"Really... those ninjas were not so bad themselves..." Joe started to say as Luka nodded.

"Have to say that they were kinda cool too, right?" she said as Marvelous snorted.

xxx

He recalled Shiina Yousuke's words to him earlier.

"_So what do you think about this Earth?"_

He grinned to himself. The greatest treasure of the universe... he might have started to truly understand what that could have mean and how that could have been related to the past sentai teams' lost powers as well as grand powers.

Perhaps... he would start paying more attention as to how he would acquire the rest of the grand powers. Perhaps then, he could appreciate more of whatever greatest treasure they would eventually find.

Because he felt that maybe... that he already had a taste of what that treasure could be.

The greatest treasure of the universe...

Yes, he was really glad it was on this planet.


End file.
